Both Surface tablets will start globetrotting 'in coming months'

Microsoft Surface releasing internationally

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Microsoft's Surface Pro is still scarce in the U.S., but that didn't stop the company from announcing on Thursday that it will soon travel abroad.

Both versions of the Surface tablet - including the Surface Pro with Windows 8 and the Surface RT with Windows RT - will be released in additional countries "in the coming months," with the first arrival slated for late March.

The Surface RT will be released in Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, and Taiwan, while Australia, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and the U.K. will get the Surface Pro.

Microsoft's corporate vice president of the Surface division said in the announcement that the company is "eager to see people and businesses in more countries get a chance to experience this new category of devices," before boasting that the Surface is "the best of a tablet and a PC."

What about us?

It's all well and good for Microsoft to begin releasing the Surface in more countries that have been without, but we're wondering about supplies in areas where Surface first started, namely the U.S.

Hard to describe

Perhaps some of that initial disinterest in the Surface can be attributed to Microsoft's own failure to adequately explain the differences between the Surface RT and the Surface Pro, or to justify the existence of the Windows RT version.

In Thursday's announcement, Microsoft said that, "Surface RT is best described as a tablet with some laptop capabilities," while the Surface Pro "is a fully functional PC that looks, feels and acts like a tablet."

If the Surface Pro is "fully functional," does that make Surface RT only partly functional? It does feature a severely limited husk of a traditional desktop, so you could certainly argue as much.